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About Portland Opera To Go

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Portland Opera To Go

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Each year Portland Opera To Go takes an opera on the road, sharing the power of opera, music, and theater with schools and communities throughout Oregon and SW Washington. It’s not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, as you might imagine. But it’s one of the most rewarding . . . for us and for the thousands upon thousands of students who get to experience live opera, many for the first time.


And this blog will give you a first-hand view from the performers themselves of what it’s like when Opera hits the road!

 

Here’s a link to more information on the tour and the program.

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Portland Opera To Go's Blog

Week 6: A la GRANDE ol' time!

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Tue, 02/12/2013 - 18:11


Dru Rutledge here.  Or you might know me better as the 2nd Lady or Papagena. 


Let me tell you a story. A story about a fearless cast and their fearless leader (you can call her Alexis) who traversed the great lands of Oregon — crossing the beautiful Blue Mountains to meet some very tiny Astronauts, through the wonderful Wallowa Mountain range where they appeared to only be 'Halfway' there, and to the bustling hallways of the music school at Eastern Oregon University.  Maybe first, I should explain in greater detail...


Monday, your band of misfits — Samm, David, Stacey, Ainsley, Ksenia, Dru (that's me), Claudia, Anthony and Kevin woke early to assemble at the Hampton Opera Center. After some much needed fuel for both the van and the pianist, we headed towards Pilot Rock Elementary.  While we experienced a small detour on the way (due to a dragon slain in the middle of the road or something) we arrived in plenty of time for our first of two performances.  Welcomed by a live gym and great playing stage, we performed first for the Pilot Rock Astronauts and then for two different schools who had done quite a bit of traveling of their own.  We were told by the custodian that the two small but mighty schools had driven 60 minutes one-way to see The Magic Flute! After an insightful Q&A session POGO headed for the mythical land of La Grande!

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Week 5: Make it work!

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Tue, 02/12/2013 - 16:55

Welcome POGO!
Hello Portland Opera Blog World!


Ksenia here….Your resident Queen of the Night/First Lady. We POGO-ers are extremely sorry about the lack of updates on our adventures, but I promise we are hard at work! I’m going to take you back to the last week of January, into the time machine we go……. (bzzzzz, meeep meep, DING!)


This week has really warmed our little POGO hearts. We have many a show, in many a place, but one of our favorites this week was most definitely visiting St. Mary’s Home for Boys. After presenting our show to the boys, we got to dine together. Each POGO-er sat at a table with 3-5 boys and talked about various aspects of our show, opera, and life in general. The gentlemen at my table ranged from 10 to 14 years old and had many questions….So many that I was asked sometimes 3 different questions at once and tried my best to keep up. There was much curiosity about where we visit, how I came to opera, where I was from (Seattle, woohoo!) and whether I preferred the Beavers or Ducks (this one left me

Traveling
Much of our travel time is spent like this...

a little puzzled until one of the other boys clued me in on the fact that these are local sports teams). 


We left the school with both our bellies and our hearts very full.

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Polishing, safety, and tacos...POGO Week 2!

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Fri, 01/18/2013 - 11:34

After a restful weekend, the intrepid POGO troupe assembled on a chilly Monday morning ready for another week of staging rehearsals!


Monday was a work through day.  We started at the beginning and scene by scene we went through fixing and polishing The Magic Flute.  There was lots of repetition, but it was a very productive and rewarding day.


We had a safety class on Tuesday.  On the Portland Opera To Go tour we are our own road crew, therefore, we needed instruction on proper lifting and carrying procedures.  Mission accomplished!  After the meeting we had another run through.  The show is going to be awesome!  Everyone sounds amazing!  At 1 o’clock we broke for lunch.


Most of the artists are really good about fixing their own lunches, but I like to sample the cafes around the opera.  Cooper’s Coffee is a great place for lunch.  Cooper’s has great sandwiches, wraps, soups, and an amazing Mediterranean quiche.    Across from Cooper’s is a great little taco truck!  La Merced has handmade tamales and some of the best burritos I have ever had!  Kevin, Anthony,  Claudia and I all give La Merced 2 thumbs up!  This is my 9th season with POGO, and one of my favorite lunch spots is Tennessee Red’s.  They make some great BBQ on 11th and Grant!

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